Black linework mandala and moon on ribs

I nearly didn't come to the reunion. Then I found the note you passed me in Year Nine, the one with a sun drawn in biro and a promise that we'd meet at the Dog and Gun once we were thirty. I am thirty-one now, with a bus ticket to Hull in my coat pocket and a tattoo still tender enough that I wince when I lean on the counter.

Mr Pargeter made us draw circles with brass compasses and pencils that always snapped. I still have his compass. I used it on the kitchen table to plan the design, a flower of petals folded inside petals, every dot placed where the arc told it to go. Dev, who has a steadier hand than either of us ever had, kept saying the spacing mattered more than the pattern. He was right. Nothing looks lovely when it's crowded.

The moon was Gran's idea. She said a crescent with one star beside it was what you hung over a door to keep the night honest. Dev drew it small and neat, and it looks like it's been there for ages, as if it might have been waiting for the rest of the picture.

So I'll bring the compass to the Dog and Gun. You bring one of those pencils that snaps. We'll see whether either of us can still draw a perfect circle on a beer mat, and whether Mr Pargeter would be proud or just sigh at the wobbly bit.

Love, Hannah